


Background Interviews

by plutosrose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Unethical Journalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose
Summary: To write a biography on Harry Potter, Rita goes to the source - classmates of Harry's during his time at Hogwarts.Or, Rita talks to minor characters because the major ones don't return her owls.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Background Interviews

Exactly one week after the Battle of Hogwarts, Rita Skeeter burst into her publisher’s Diagon Alley office and dropped a fifty-page excerpt of her next biography on their desk. “I’ve had it in development since he was Hogwarts’s second champion at the Triwizard Tournament,” she said, smirking as she adjusts her spectacles. “He’s a hot commodity now that the war is over.”

Frankly, she also had a book ready to go if Harry and his band of merry misfits hadn’t won the war. She was always prepared in these situations. 

“So, what do you think?” she asked as her publisher flipped through the parchment. She could practically see dollar signs in their eyes. Who wouldn’t want to be the first one to publish a comprehensive account of The Boy Who Lived’s time at Hogwarts?

“How soon can you have the rest of it?” they asked, looking up at her.

Rita grins, because she knows that there’s nothing that the wizarding world loves more than a good story. “About a month,” she says idly. “I’ve lined up some interviews with some of Harry’s old classmates and other students. A few Quick Quotes Quills will make short work of the entire thing.”

Her publisher nods. “This will sell double, if not triple, the copies that your biography of Albus Dumbledore did.” 

She flashes him a haughty, toothy grin. “I know.”

~ 

“Interview Subject #1: Sue Li,” Rita tells the quill, and it scribbles out a header on a piece of parchment. 

It is one week after the meeting with her editor, and Rita is seated across from Sue Li, a Ravenclaw girl who was in the same year as Harry Potter at Hogwarts. 

Sue is tall and thin, with long black hair that ends halfway down her back. She keeps looking over her shoulder, as though she’s expecting someone at any moment.

“Now, Sue--can I call you Sue?”

Before she can answer, Rita steamrollers ahead. “So Sue, what I’d like from you is to get an account of what it was like to be in Harry’s year on Sorting Night.”

“Well,” she murmured, cradling the cup of coffee that Rita had purchased for her in her hands. “I remember that the Great Hall was quiet for a really long time after his name was read aloud.”

“I see,” Rita said pensively, as the Quill wrote down ‘Harry walked up to the Sorting Hat and proclaimed that he was the savior of the wizarding world.’ 

“What’s it writing?” Sue asked, as Rita waved her off. 

“Just ignore it and continue, please,” she smiled, adjusting her spectacles. 

“Right,” Sue said after a moment’s pause. “So, the Great Hall was very quiet. Lots of people were talking about him in the corridors. Everyone had their own theories about him, you know? My family lived in China until I was five, and even we’d heard of him there. There was one theory floating around that he was actually muggleborn.”

The Quill wrote down, ‘Bewitched muggles to act as caregivers.’

“He was somehow able to take on a troll that year too,” Sue added, taking a sip of her drink. “To be honest, I kind of always wondered about that. What first year is able to just take on a troll? Or He Who Must Not Be Named when he’s possessed a teacher? To be honest, I always wondered what really happened to Professor Quirrell.”

The Quill wrote down, ‘Possessed Professor Quirrell.’ 

~

“Interview Subject #2: Tracey Davis,” Rita dictated to the Quick Quotes Quill as she settled into her seat opposite Tracey at a Hogsmeade restaurant. 

Tracey, who is short, with cropped blonde hair, looks at Rita suspiciously. “Are you going to print my name in your book? Just in case I say something that Potter doesn’t like.”   
Rita smiles at her gently. “Of course, I don’t have to.” The quill crosses out her name and writes ‘Dacey Travis.’

“What is of particular interest to me in this interview,” Rita begins, “is Harry’s second year. I’m sure that you--”

“---everything that Harry Potter has said, everything he’s done,” Tracey begins to shake. “...he’s just full of shit. He started a rumor that he was in the heir of Slytherin, and then he and his stupid friend Ronald Weasley staged a kidnapping with his sister to try and get all of the Slytherins kicked out of Hogwarts.”

The quill writes down everything that she says verbatim.

~ 

“Interview Subject #3: Astoria Greengrass,” she says as the Quill writes down her name. This time she is not out in public - she is in the Greengrass’s home, under the watchful eye of Daphne Greengrass, who is watching Astoria like a mother hippogriff. 

“You don’t have to say anything that you don’t want to, Tori,” Daphne says combatively. 

Astoria is barely able to get out three words before Daphne decides the interview is over.

When Rita is at home later, she embellishes an entire chapter about how Harry fought a werewolf barehanded in order to save his beloved potions professor, Severus Snape.

~

Eloise Midgen is unable to get through the interview because she starts sobbing every time that Ronald Weasley is brought up as they discuss the Yule Ball. Rita hands her a handkerchief, and later writes a lengthy chapter (though she’s not entirely sure how useful it is) about Ronald Weasley’s notorious womanizing. 

~

Andrew Kirke chews with his mouth full, which makes Rita wrinkle her nose in disgust. “You played on the Gryffindor Quidditch team with Harry, is that correct?” 

He waves his fork, flinging bits of food in her direction. “Yeah, I did, but whatever crap you hear about me being shitty at flying is a load of crap, okay? I was bludgered when I fell off of that broom. I’m not scared of Hufflepuffs. So if Harry tells you that, don’t believe him.”

The quill wrote down ‘Harry Potter spreads rumor that injured beater is afraid of Hufflepuffs.’

~

Rose Zeller, to Rita’s admission, was not the perfect source, being too young and too far removed from Harry’s year for her to have very much reliable information. She talks for about three hours, virtually non-stop, about her time at Hogwarts, until Rita makes an excuse to leave and decides that she will just write a chapter about Harry being depressed over the death of his mentor Albus Dumbledore, instead.

Readers ate that shit up.

~

Miles Bletchley towers over her, and extends a muscular arm to shake her hand when she meets him at a small, upscale London restaurant that caters specifically to its magical residents. 

“So, you want to talk about the Battle, right? That year?” 

Rita nods, although this interview was possibly even less useful than the one with Rose Zeller. Admittedly, the Cattermoles, who came face-to-face with Harry, Ron, and Hermione during their infiltration of the ministry and their year on the run, would not return her owls. 

But, the Battle is recent enough. Maybe she can skip over it, only reference it through the statistics that were recently published in The Daily Prophet. Or, she will write a chapter about how Harry loudly proclaimed that he was going to defeat Voldemort, and how he flung himself on the ground and cried for whatever goodness that Voldemort had deep inside of him that had died that day.

Who knew? Either way, she was on her way to a massive payday.


End file.
